


The Weight of Grief

by redporchrebel



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Coldplay was my soundtrack for writing this so do with that what you will, Light Angst, M/M, Moonshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:02:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redporchrebel/pseuds/redporchrebel
Summary: The Legends are recuperating from the events of "Moonshot." After the death of his grandfather and dissolution of his relationship with Amaya, Nate turns to Ray for solace. But the Atom has a loss of his own to process.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever written and the first fiction writing I've actually shared with an audience in a while, so I was aiming more for completion than overall quality here. I just had a lot of feelings after "Moonshot" and didn't know where else to put them. Also, apologies for not doing much editing, but I hope it's readable and maybe even not terrible. Last thing, I couldn't remember whether the show has ever revealed much about Anna, so I came up with her characterization entirely on my own.

Nate had broken things off with Amaya. He didn’t announce it out loud, but Ray sensed something had changed the moment Nate drifted into his room. It was in his stiff posture and tightly clenched jaw, his hands curled loosely – perhaps unknowingly – into fists. 

Ray had just opened up a copy of T.H. White’s _The Once and Future King_ that Gideon had supplied a couple of days ago, or however long it had been since they left Camelot. His ability to keep track of time had deteriorated significantly since he started traveling through it. Anyway, he’d read the book before multiple times, mostly during those awkward adolescent years, but it had been a while, and something about fighting alongside the literal, actual Guinevere and King Arthur had him craving the legends that had so captivated him in his youth.

When Nate walked in, though, he set aside the book and bolted up from where he’d been sitting on his bed, maybe a little too eagerly. He intended to go over and embrace his friend, but one look into those jade-green eyes froze him in place.

Ray had seen that look too many times out of too many people’s faces before. War veterans call it the thousand-yard stare, where the eyes go hazy and unfocused, as if everything behind them has been hollowed out.

So, they simply stood there for a moment at opposite ends of the room that Ray had come to think of as home, despite its austere furnishings and the air of sterility that had once upon a time reminded him of something out of _2001: A Space Odyssey_ or, worse, a hospital.

A flash of light hit something metal clutched in Nate’s hand.

Ah. Right. Ray’s stomach twisted as he remembered the relief that had filled him after Henry sacrificed himself so that the Waverider could survive its reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

“We made it,” he’d said, ignoring, of course, that not everyone had.

Watching your grandfather die would do a number on any guy, even if he was doing something heroic. Even if he’d technically been dead your whole life.

Eobard Thawne’s words rushed, unbidden, through Ray’s mind. _You could use the dwarf star in your exo-suit to power an entire city, but instead, you chose to become the Atom. Because you weren’t satisfied with your small, pathetic life…_

“You doing okay, man?” Even as the words left his mouth, Ray knew it was an idiotic question. The “sorry” that he blurted out immediately afterwards sounded equally feeble, dissipating into the air so quickly he wondered whether he’d actually said it out loud or just in his head.

“Don’t talk.” Nate’s voice lodged the image of someone trying to free themselves from a tar pit slowly dragging them down in Ray’s mind.

Just getting those two words out must’ve been a struggle. Ray remembered the feeling well.

“Alright.”

Blinking, as if just realizing where he was, Nate looked as though he wanted to say something else, but then he stopped and shook his head. Slipping Henry’s dog tags around his neck, he crossed the room in three long strides before dropping down on Ray’s bed. He kept his gaze fixed on the tiled floor.

“Can you just…stay with me?”

“Whatever you need.”

Ray sat back down on his bed in the exact same spot where, mere seconds ago, he’d been prepared to dive into a world of magicians and shape-shifting princes. Wedged between the wall and his friend, Ray draped one arm across Nate’s back and gave his shoulder a soft squeeze. The muscle underneath Nate’s dark knit sweater felt firm.

When they first met, he’d been struck by how well-built the other man was for someone who had been hemophiliac until a few months ago. At some point, he had screwed up the courage – or at least set aside his awareness of social cues – to ask, and Nate had explained that regular exercise actually helped, since it built up and strengthened muscles, though he’d never been able to participate in team sports.

“Which is too bad,” Nate had added, a lopsided grin lighting up his face, “because I would’ve kicked ass at football.”

That was one mystery solved.

They remained like that for a while, Nate leaning against Ray, and Ray with an arm around his shoulders. Though Ray sensed that they would look inelegant to a passerby, all pressed together at the edge of his compact bed, this felt to him, in this moment, like the most natural position in the world.

At least he did, before he became acutely aware of the heat that the historian’s body radiated into his side, the warmth a noticeable contrast with the slight chill of air-conditioning that otherwise filled the room. Before he realized that the head resting on his shoulder was uncomfortably heavy and that Nate’s chest rose and fell in sporadic shudders. The sobs emitted no sound, which just made the silence ringing in Ray’s ears grow.

Nate was almost Ray’s equal in size, but right now, he seemed small and fragile. For a second, Ray could see the lonely kid who’d spent his days confined to a single house, his eyes glued to a TV screen whenever his nose wasn’t buried in a book.

Unsure if the prohibition on talking was still in effect, Ray tried to remember what he’d wanted to hear from someone – anyone – after Anna’s death. He came up empty.

Only clichés ran through his head: _I’m so sorry for your loss. It gets better. I can’t imagine how you feel right now. She’d want you to be happy. We’ll be here, if you need anything._ He’d heard all of those, plus a lot of references to heaven and angels, though Anna had been a lapsed Catholic and had told him once over dinner that she’d never believed in God at all.

At the time, Ray had nodded along with those sentiments, all the while forcing down the urge to throttle, or at least snap at the speaker. Now that he was in the reverse position, he understood the appeal, the way the well-worn lines just danced onto the edge of your tongue. As if you could make them true just by repeating them. 

Ray couldn’t stand the quiet any longer, so he asked, “Have I ever told you about Anna?”

Another dumb question. Of course he’d told Nate about his one-time fiancée (ex-fiancée? No one had ever told him the proper terminology to use when the person you love is murdered in cold blood). But he genuinely couldn’t recall if he’d talked to Nate – or anyone else, for that matter – about who Anna was as a person.

Maybe Kendra. Yes, he’d definitely shared Anna with her in bits and pieces over those two years, the closest he’d gotten to a normal life since her death.

“We met in college,” Ray started. Then, he paused, because he realized that he was probably about to sound like an old crank reminiscing about his glory days, or like an asshole taking a friend’s tragedy and making it about his own.

Nate had gone still, though, his breathing now more regular and shallow, and he didn’t give Ray a glare or an elbow to the torso, so he took the lack of response as a sign to continue.

“We met in college,” he resumed. “This was my senior year, her junior year at Berkeley. We were both studying engineering, but her real passion was art, specifically drawing and sculpture. God, she was brilliant. She just saw things in a way that no one else did. She could solve problems that stumped our professors, and the things she created…”

Ray prattled on like that, his mouth trying to keep up with the memories suddenly flooding through his brain. He told Nate about their early post-undergraduate years, when he tore through grad school and Anna muddled through an entry-level job that, to her chagrin, had primarily consisted of fetching data sheets and drinks for patronizing executives. They compensated for tedious days with nights spent brainstorming and experimenting in a dingy, too-expensive apartment, their minds wired by exhaustion barely kept at bay by ill-advised coffee binges and the excitement of thinking you can change the world.

He told Nate that the idea for their first real invention, meaning one that actually worked and could be sold on the marketplace, came from her. They’d shared credit, as always, but over time, they both noticed that the industry and public’s attention kept shifting more and more to him, not necessarily a surprise since he was the better businessman, and she preferred to stay out of the spotlight anyway. Still, he knew she resented being cast as a mere assistant or emotional support, even if she never held it against him.

He told Nate about the small things: the effort she’d thrown into selecting and furnishing the apartment they’d bought in Starling City after his proposal, her love of nature coupled with her inability to go more than a few days without internet access, the way she smiled – slow, as if she was calculating whether something merited such a reaction, but then so wide he could disappear into it.

He didn’t tell Nate about the bad days, when she could barely get out of bed, or the way she crossed her arms when upset, her hands cupping her elbows as though she was trying to hold herself together. He didn’t mention the sound her neck made when it broke, that snap, like newly frozen ice cubes being pushed out of a plastic tray. Or how long he’d screamed afterwards. Or the fact that he still saw her limp body lying on the street in his dreams, the hulking shadows of masked men in the background, always just out of his reach as they faded into night.

Ray fell silent. He didn’t know how long he’d been babbling, but he realized that he was tracing circles with the side of his thumb on Nate’s shoulder, the same thing he always did when consoling Anna. She’d found it comforting, the repetitiveness, the pressure on her arm going one way and then coming back around to form something complete.

His thumb froze.

“No,” Nate said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t stop.”

Something changed in the air. Ray would compare it to a jolt of electricity, but having experienced more than one of those – real ones, not the tiny static shocks you get after rubbing your feet on carpet – the metaphor struck him as less-than-apt. Whatever it was, it sent a tingle up his spine, and he suddenly became aware of how rapidly his heart was beating. 

Without thinking, he swept his hand across Nate’s shoulder blade, stopping at his neck. Ray could feel the muscles and tendons shift as the other man became taut, then relaxed at the unexpected sensation of a hand on his bare skin. He extended his fingers so that they ran through Nate’s thick brown hair – only then did it register how long he’d wanted to do that – while the heel of his palm brushed against the beaded chain that held Henry’s dog tags. 

_Am I a good person?_ Ray wanted to ask, the question lingering on the tip of his tongue.

“You know Mick calls you Boy Scout, right?” Nate would’ve said, his eyebrows raised. At least, that’s what he would’ve said a day ago. The man by Ray’s side right now seemed like a different person.

He’d told Thawne that he became the Atom to help people, and that was true, sort of, he thought. But it had started as a diversion, a challenge for him to solve that would keep his hands and mind busy.

Without the suit, without something he could disappear into and tinker with and fix, he was still the guy who couldn’t save the person he loved. He went back to lying, helpless, on the street as a city burned down around him. 

_There is no shame in wanting to become greater, to reach higher, to…walk on the moon._

He closed his eyes, trying to will away the darkness creeping through the corners of his mind.

So, he didn’t see Nate reach over and hook an arm around his neck. He only felt it, a gentle yet firm tug, and then he was looking into a pair of cool green eyes that made something in him melt. As Nate pulled his head closer, Ray noticed the faint pink along the edges of his friend’s eyelids.

They kissed, long and deep and more than a little desperate.

Ray tasted salt on Nate’s lips – the remnants of tears, he knew. Wrapping his arms around the other man’s torso, he guided Nate down onto the bed, and they collapsed on the too-thin mattress, which had clearly been designed for basic sleeping needs and little else.

He clambered on top, a more difficult maneuver than it sounded given the confines of the bed, before burying his face in the hollow between Nate’s neck and shoulder. An ache worked its way through his body as he slipped one hand up Nate’s shirt, caressing his side. The other hand fumbled with a belt buckle.

He was tugging down the zipper on Nate’s blue jeans when a hand reached down and stopped him.

“You don’t want to?” Ray asked, unable to keep a hint of disappointment out of his voice. 

“No, I do. Just…maybe, not right now. Not yet.”

Nate held Ray’s head with one hand, fingers curling around his right ear. “Sorry,” he murmured. His eyes darted back and forth as if searching Ray’s face for anger. “It’s too soon after…I think I just needed this.”

As Nate lifted his head from the pillow for another kiss, Ray found himself trying to memorize his face: the creases lining his forehead, the smooth slope of his nose, the shape of the splash of stubble covering his chin and upper lip. This kiss was shorter, but Ray felt the corners of Nate’s mouth twitch up in at least the approximation of a smile, and his heart skipped a beat.

“Thank you,” Nate mouthed when they finished. His breath tickled Ray’s cheek.

Rolling over onto his side, Ray drank in Nate’s back and the light tan of his neck before folding his arms around the other man and pulling him close. 

He wanted to tell Nate – to warn him – that grief didn’t fade, not the way people wanted it to. It was a weight hanging around your neck, a constant burden. Sometimes, it got lighter, and you could even forget for a time that it was there, but then you’d reach up and remember, and it would all come flooding back, just as heavy and exhausting as before.

Ray was still learning how to carry his pain.

But that could wait, like everything else. Right now, he was holding his best friend in his arms, and he knew that this was exactly where he was meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to have more Amaya in this piece, but I couldn't figure out how to make that work. I do have a vague idea for story centered on her that I might get around to doing sometime, so if anyone's interested in that, feel free let me know in the comments.


End file.
